<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Bombs + Breathing by starrylizard</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27186388">Bombs + Breathing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrylizard/pseuds/starrylizard'>starrylizard</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MacGyver (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Exhaustion, Gen, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:41:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,261</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27186388</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrylizard/pseuds/starrylizard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, Mac? Mac, can you hear me? You’re scaring me here, hoss.”<br/>Mac is exhausted after a drawn out mission. He gets a little lost in his head, but Jack is there.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jack Dalton &amp; Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>89</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bombs + Breathing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Flash fic written for the prompt: "I know you can't feel it, but I'm holding your hand" and Jack being gentle with a panicked Mac.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>“Mac, how’s it coming?”</em> Mac could hear the sound of gunfire behind Jack’s voice through the radio. <em>“Not sure how much longer I can keep these guys entertained.” </em></p><p> </p><p>It was hot on the roof with the sun beating down. Sweat beaded on Mac’s skin and rolled down his neck. It had been almost three solid days of constant movement, Mac grasping small snatches of sleep scrunched up in a car or, at one point, knocked out cold for a few minutes. (He wasn’t sure that counted as sleep.)</p><p> </p><p>“I need more time, Jack.”</p><p> </p><p>Mac rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye and pushed his hair, limp with sweat, out of his face. In front of him, the wires were fuzzing in and out as he tried to force his eyes to focus. He just needed to disarm this bomb and the plans of a wannabe dictator would be undone for good.</p><p> </p><p>He just needed . . . the blue wire went to the detonator and the . . .</p><p> </p><p>“Focus! Come on!” Mac growled. He’d meant that to be an internal monologue, but the lack of sleep was definitely showing.</p><p> </p><p><em>“Mac?”</em> Jack’s voice was full of concern. “You got this, bud. Just like back in the sandbox.”</p><p> </p><p>Mac took a steadying breath, and another. His breath shook on the exhale, but it worked somewhat, even if deliberately slowing things down seemed to take every ounce of effort that he had left in him. He forced his full focus onto the mass of tangled wiring. The blue wire came back into focus first and then he traced the other connected red and purple wires, unscrewed a further panel and followed it into the guts of the mechanism.</p><p> </p><p>Wannabe dictators never did anything small; there was enough explosive in this thing to take out more than the one building. There were so many more lives at stake.</p><p> </p><p>They’d already lost too many good people on this mission. The ambassador and his wife. Their kid. And Riley in the hospital. Mac didn’t want to think what could have happened if the ambassador hadn’t pushed her clear. They should be with her now, and they would be, once they finished the mission. He just had to disarm this bomb. <em>Focus, Mac.</em></p><p> </p><p>And there it was, the wires, the connections, they all started to make sense, as a diagram formed in his mind and the pieces clicked neatly into place. He knew what he had to do.</p><p> </p><p>Mac cut the purple wires and . . . held his breath. The timer stopped, held. It didn’t restart.</p><p> </p><p><em>“Mac? Hey, talk to me, kid.”  </em> </p><p> </p><p>Mac must have tuned Jack out. His partner’s voice, along with everything else, suddenly rushed back in and Jack had clearly soared past concern to something much stronger.</p><p> </p><p><em>“Mac? I’m making my way to you, but I could really use an update, buddy.” </em>Mac could hear him panting hard, the sound almost overwhelmingly loud though the earpiece. The occasional gunfire was still ever-present on the radio transmission.</p><p> </p><p>“’s done,” Mac managed, pushing the words out around a very parched tongue and suddenly numb lips as he stumbled toward a small area of shade made where the wall of the building met the roof.</p><p> </p><p>He ripped out the earpiece, too unbearably, gratingly loud now. It didn’t help, the whole world seemed to rush in. His equilibrium shifted as he found himself stumbling, so near the edge of the building that he was all too aware of the distance to the ground. The traffic noises coming from below mixed with the sound of the air-conditioning vents to his left. The slight breeze was unbearable on suddenly sensitive skin, and there was the sound of his own breathing rattling through his brain like a freight train.</p><p> </p><p>He felt his back hit the hot bricks of the wall, his knees wobbled and then gave out, as he slid down to the concrete, his chin resting on his knees as his hands came up to cover his ears. He rocked slightly to the sound of his own heartbeat and breathing, his skin nothing but a mess of pins and needles and his brain full of white noise and fog.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Mac? Mac, can you hear me? You’re scaring me here, hoss.”</p><p> </p><p>Distantly, a familiar voice reached him. A muffled and anguished cry reached him too and, a still logical part of his brain supplied him with the fact that he had made that sound. And that the sound felt different somehow now in one ear than the other. His hand must have come away on that side.</p><p> </p><p>“I know you can’t feel it, but I promise I’m holding your hand right now, kid. You gotta slow it down for me, okay. Remember how we blew up all those balloons for Bozer’s birthday last month? You just need to take one nice deep breath for me. Just like that, like you’re blowing up those balloons. Just one good breath, in and out.”</p><p> </p><p>Mac could’ve sworn his lungs, along with the rest of his body, were completely missing. He was just floating somewhere, but it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. He found himself clinging to the familiar voice, Jack’s voice, as he imagined the balloons they’d blown up for Bozer. The colours and shapes. The childish faces Jack had drawn onto several of them. The deep breath in and the slow breath out to inflate them.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s it, in and out. You got this!”</p><p> </p><p>Mac felt a warm hand on his face and he blinked open his eyes, squinting a little at the sun until a Jack-shaped shadow shifted to block it. He found himself staring straight into Jack’s concerned face, eyebrows furrowed.  </p><p> </p><p>“There you are. Had me worried there for a minute.”</p><p> </p><p>Mac sniffed, only then realising that hot tears that were sliding down his face. Jack’s hand moved slightly where it rested on Mac’s chin, and there was the slide of a rough thumb as it swiped some of the tears away. Mac leaned into the touch a little and brought his free hand up to fist into Jack’s tac vest in an attempt to ground himself. He squeezed his other hand where he now could feel Jack holding it.</p><p> </p><p>Solid. Real. Feeling seemed to slowly seep back into his body until he just felt overwhelmingly tired and sad.</p><p> </p><p>“Jack, what happened?” Mac stuttered a little around the words.</p><p> </p><p>“Honestly, kid. I think three days of shit happened,” Jack grumbled, but he smiled in a relieved sort of way.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t save them, Jack. And Riley. . .”</p><p> </p><p>Mac’s voice faltered as he found himself with a much closer view of Jack’s eyes. Jack’s hand had slid around to the back of Mac’s neck and dragged him forward until their foreheads were all but touching.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll say it as many times as I have to in order to get you to believe it. None of it was your fault, Mac. None of it. You hear me? And Riley is gonna be fine. Now breathe.”</p><p> </p><p>Mac nodded, letting out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding and then dragging a new one in.</p><p> </p><p>“Think you can stand?”</p><p> </p><p>Mac nodded again, not sure if he really could, but grateful for Jack’s help as he was pulled to his feet. One arm wrapped around his waist, steadying him whenever the ground seemed to tilt and sway.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, then, hoss. Let’s go see Riles.” </p><p> </p><p>As a Phoenix tactical team now spread out across the roof, secured the bomb, and finished clearing the building, two very tired men stumbled toward the exit.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>